Comments from “Plugged-In” Readers

Next time anyone complains about lack of affordable housing, or anything for that matter, look to this for a reason. All of this time is money being spent that ultimately has to be passed on. This City is full of it.

Blight preservation wins again! Only in San Francisco.
Interestingly, there was an article in this weekend’s New York Times about the Lower East Side in the dark days of the early 70’s. The photos showed burned out buildings and empty lots everywhere. Of course since then they’ve all been rebuilt and filled in, but had SF-style planning (sic) prevailed the neighborhood would still be decaying and blighted, only worse.

What is sad is that it seems the developers and other stakeholders (folks who actually live there) went through a formal process … and now, because some folks are kicking up dirt, Supervisor Mirkarimi wants to have a re-do …. please God don’t let him think he can be Mayor if he lacks gumption to tell constituents “you’re too late … the process has completed.”
We need some Supervisors with spines, for one thing.

Mirkarimi has no respect for rules and process, especially when it comes to planning matters. He is infamous for inserting himself into Planning matters after the commission and BOS have already approved something simply because some of his constituents lost the battle or were too late to the process.

Bureaucratic paralysis is nothing new. Check out the huge parking lots that extend from Hayes Green to Van Ness, created when the 1989 earthquake took down an earlier stretch of freeway. Next year will be the 20th anniversary of this lost opportunity.

People should be lighting up Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi’s phone line – he is the one responsible for re-opening this deal and slowing down the process. This happens FAR too often in SF – a developer goes down an excruciatingly detailed planning process, working everything out, making concessions to get approval, and then in the end some supervisor ignores it all and tries to get one more “bite”. It’s outrageous.